We're closing out the year with another Disney epic. But it's not a swashbuckling adventure or a superhero extravaganza, it's THE HAPPIEST MILLIONAIRE. A classic (or should we say dated) comedy musical that tells the story of...well, we're not really sure. A father who keeps gators in his upscale Philadelphia home? A daughter who wants to find love unfettered by her promising boxing career? A butler with a sunny outlook thanks to a made-up word? It's gotta be something, cause this movie is almost three hours long!
We're wrapping up the winter of our discontent with a more modern, more direct-to-video installment with MICKEY'S ONCE UPON A CHRISTMAS. This Disney holiday releases features a trio of stories clearly targeted towards very young children, yet still somehow featuring concepts and ideas that will prompt difficult questions for parents to answer. For our hosts' part, they've never felt sorrier for Donald, never loved Goofy more, and as for Mickey...they've got nothing against Mickey.
Finally, after many requests, and after much debate and deliberation, it's happened. We Want The D is talking Muppets. And what better way to welcome them into the fold than by shining some light onto the winter of our discontent in the form of THE MUPPET CHRISTMAS CAROL. A beloved classic no matter how you slice it, the first Disney/Muppet collab was a solid showcase for the gang and arguably the best adaptation of the Dickens novella.
Now is the winter of our discontent. And what better way to kick off this most December of seasons than with a Disney movie with a divisive lead actress, a story penned by Meg Cabot, and that awkward early 2000s teen aesthetic (and soundtrack). We could only be talking about the one and only ICE PRINCESS, a movie about blowing a promising career in academia for a few fleeting years as a middle-tier at best figure skater.
We'll give it to you straight, D-sciples: watching the final Fess Parker Disney movie is made all the more disappointing by the fact that THE GREAT LOCOMOTIVE CHASE just isn't very good. His usual calm-yet-charismatic stoicism just isn't well suited to the character he plays, and that's setting aside the fact that this movie plays the both side-ism card with the American Civil War of all things. But hey, Walt got to play train conductor for a few months, so probably worth it in his books.
Our hosts have been flummoxed by Disney movies before, D-Lovers, but it's unlikely they've ever been flummoxed to this degree. OLD DOGS is ostensibly another entry in the "man not prepared for fatherhood is thrown into it" class of family film, and you'd think having the great Robin Williams in that role would be a recipe for success. But something is off with this movie, something is...wrong. And we're not just talking about whatever is going on with John Travolta's face. Was it written by a computer? Did the director have dirt on every Disney suit? Listen to find out if we get to the bottom of another bottom-of-the-barrel Disney movie.
A small trivia challenge for you, D-Lovers. Name five famous movie dogs. Now, did anyone happen to name Benji? You're forgiven even if you didn't, because despite starring in his own franchise of movies that spans decades, Benji seems to have flown under the radar, at least for our hosts. So BENJI THE HUNTED, his only Disney movie, was also our introduction to this cute little dog performer. And while Benji may have some impressive tricks up his sleeves, it's unfortunate that this script only really has three scenes it repeats over and over and over again.
Experience has taught us that plot descriptions can be deceiving, especially when it comes to 1960s live action Disney movies. A movie about a cat returning from the dead might be a dud, while the hijinks of a college campus scrambled egghead might be charming. So we can't be fully surprised that EMIL AND THE DETECTIVES, a movie about a small boy who teams up with another small boy who runs a detective agency/tourist company/porter service to reclaim his stolen 400 deutschmarks from a wanted criminal who dresses like a clown ended up being a pretty solid viewing experience.
In these strange and uncertain times, it's nice to have something to rely on. And what could be more dependable than knowing watching Fess Parker's raw and steady charisma in Disney's DAVY CROCKETT AND THE RIVER PIRATES will bring some measure of comfort? And as an added bonus, this movie also treats our hosts to the one-of-a-kind, King of the River, barrel-chested Mike Fink - who may have been a bit of a shit in real life, but his fictional counterpart is pure delight.
Let us explain, D-Lovers. We know that THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS was originally released under the Touchstone banner, and Disney only properly brought it into the fold upon it's rerelease some ten years later. We know we've been pretty strict about what qualifies as a Disney movie for this podcast. But consider this: if Vicky, Nolan and Jill had to watch one more lousy, Halloween-themed TV movie this year (of all years), our hosts would lose their collective and individual minds. So we're treating ourselves, and therefor also treating you to this bonafide classic. Don't think about it too much and just enjoy it!
No October Season would be complete without a visit to Halloweentown, but it is with great regret that we inform you this year's trip has been cancelled. This time, it's a bunch of Halloweentown teens who are coming to us - more specifically, to a Utah high school/adult learning annex. HALLOWEENTOWN HIGH may be aptly named anyway, since it's the high point in the series so far, but that might be damning it with faint praise. Join us as we see just how dumb and horny these Cromwell witches can be, see some familiar High School Musical faces, and play another game of We Want The D favourite "is that a real monkey?"
Our collective October Season nightmare of Disney Channel Original Movies continues this week with DON'T LOOK UNDER THE BED. Its fan reputation may have you believe that this is a legit spooky story, and sure there may be a jump scare or two, but overall there's just way too many vests worn by the lead character for this to be truly threatening. And it doesn't matter how mean or prankful a boogeyman (or boogeyperson) is, when contrasted with the world's most charismatic imaginary friend there's just no way to find them truly frightening.
It's October Season which only means one thing - our hosts are going to be subjected to the horrors of a bunch of Halloween-ish Disney made-for-TV movies. And as you can imagine, this one is a doozy. Because Z-O-M-B-I-E-S is in many ways the spiritual successor to a few other high school-set DCOM musicals you may have heard of, and opinions are sharply divided on whether it is a worthy successor to the throne. The stakes have never been lower and the pastels have never been more sickly.
It's the most spookiest time of the year! We're kicking off this October Season with what isn't really a Halloween movie, but hey at least we're not starting with a DCOM. So MALEFICENT: MISTRESS OF EVIL will have to do. Which more or less encapsulates our hosts' feelings toward this Disney movie, as a follow-up to a film none of us really liked but had a number of things we liked about it. This sequel though? Not so much. But at the end of the day, it's still got Angelina Jolie and her striking features, weird skeleton, and delightful performance.
After two hundred and seventy episodes, it's hard to imagine that a Disney movie could elicit a new reaction or response from any one of our hosts. Yet somehow, against all odds, NO DESPOSIT, NO RETURN has one of us nearly refusing to engage with it at all. Which is odd because on paper this movie is just another benign 1970s entry in the canon, featuring all the familiar hallmarks. Tediously long car chases, child endangerment, Don Knotts, etc, etc. Have a listen and maybe you can puzzle out what makes this movie differ from so many others...and also if you can figure out why it's called No Deposit, No Return and share it with us, that'd be swell.
There's a chill in the air and the days are getting shorter, so it must mean it's time to bring our Summer of Sadness to a close (the year of eternal disappointment, and also fire and plague, will continue indefinitely). Our hosts end this summer series, appropriately enough, with Disney's FRANKENWEENIE; a feature length film based on one of Tim Burton's early short films that he produced during his first ill-fated tenure at the House of Mouse. In many ways a perfect summation of all of Burton's strengths and weaknesses, it provides plenty of interesting discussion fodder for Vicky, Nolan and Jill to mull over...and also cat poop.
If you've been listening to this podcast for any length of time, you know full well that our hosts often worship at the altar of Menken. But we all know that when it comes to the beloved songs of Disney Renaissance, Menken is only half the story. This week we celebrate the life and work of the other half, via the documentary HOWARD. Ambitious, relentlessly hardworking, obsessively creative (and controlling), if nothing else this film proves that Disney wouldn't be where they are today if it wasn't for the words and ideas of Howard Ashman.
The only thing our hosts found harder than consistently and correctly pronouncing the name of the main character in this week's film was staying on topic. That's not to say Disney's SHIPWRECKED is a bad movie - it's a pretty passable family adventure movie, if a little frustrating that it never fulfills the Home Alone-esque elements of its plot. But there's only so much analysis that can be done to Gabriel Byrne's villainous turn, or why a single gorilla would be stranded on an otherwise deserted island somewhere in the Pacific ocean.
It's another week of fond farewells as we say goodbye to the Richard Todd/Glynis Johns Disney costume dramas of the 1950s. We've loved these Disney movies for their amazing production design and costuming, how they capture the language of bygone eras, and the promise of Richard Todd taking his shirt off. In THE SWORD AND THE ROSE not only is that promise realized, we get a legitimate contender for first truly female-led movie in the live action Disney canon, a delightful interpretation of Henry VIII as a fun-loving party animal, and Vicky might have found herself a new catchphrase.
Over four years ago, our hosts watched both versions of Disney's The Shaggy Dog, and it was such a rough experience that not even our Summer of Sequels could get us to watch the follow-up to the 1959 original. The time has finally come, however, and we are pleased to announced that THE SHAGGY D.A. takes every single aspect of this kook-a-dook premise and knocks it right out of the park. Starring several of our favourites of the Disney 60s and 70s live action fare all doing some of their best work, dynamite slapstick comedy, and a man running around in a dog suit, there's no shortage of fun to be had or talked about.
Not going to lie to you, D-Lovers, this episode isn't almost 90 minutes because we had a whole lot to say about Disney's BEDTIME STORIES. Sure, it's acceptable enough family fare with some serious problems that we definitely get into. But given this is the only Disney movie that features Adam Sandler, the reality is we spend a large chunk of time discussing our beloved Sandman in general, both in this movie, in others, and his career in general. But don't worry, we won't be pivoting into an Adam Sandler podcast anytime soon - our hosts just needed to get this out of their system.
In this Minnie Mouse-isode edition of the Summer of Sadness, we attempt to unpack the enigma that is Tim Burton. A man whose whole aesthetic and, well, everything screams "outsider" yet whose only dreams were to draw animation for Disney. And despite an awkward beginning, he would go on to direct several successful movies for them. Tim Burton may be a riddle we'll never quite solve, but his history and philosophies, such as they are, sure are fun to discuss.
The time has come for us to bid a not-so-fond farewell to Medfield College, along with its students and faculty and the handful of criminals who keep getting wrapped up in their science-based shenanigans. But this time the titular STRONGEST MAN IN THE WORLD might not be the young, round-faced Kurt Russell as we've come to expect, but the nasally-voiced, foot corn-infested Dean Higgins. Or maybe it's both of them, who can say. All our hosts know for sure is that for the final film in a Disney trilogy, this movie is a total mess.
It's not every day you get a movie that the House of Mouse was so proud of, they stick their name in the title. But it's also not every day you get superstar Bruce Willis to star alongside your latest and greatest lab-grown little ragamuffin child actor Spencer Breslin. Yes, DISNEY'S THE KID sure is special. If only it made a lick of sense in pretty much any way, shape or form.
This summer keeps getting weird so we'll keep charging ahead with our Summer of Sadness, exploring the Disney films of Tim Burton. In this week's entry, Timmy B is once again kicking back in the producer's chair as some close collaborators from a well-loved stop-motion film have another kick at that can with JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH. But while stop motion, Roald Dahl, and Tim Burton should be a match made in heaven, this one falls just a little short for our hosts. Have a listen and find out why!
Small technical note, we lost a few minutes of this week's recording, which may or may not be noticeable. If you don't notice it, then ignore this. If you do, well, this is why you noticed something off. Our apologies, such are the pitfalls of remote recording during a pandemic!